_In later years Chirikov abandoned his didactic themes and devoted himself entirely to purely psychological studies of provincial life which he knows so well and of which “Faust” is a good example._ _One of his plays, “The Chosen People,” was produced in America by the Orleniev Company of Russian actors, of which Mme. Nazimova was a member._ [Illustration] FAUST BY EUGENE CHIRIKOV Translated by Lizzie B. Gorin. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son. When Iván Mikhailovich awoke one morning, the whole household was already long up, and from the distance came the ringing voices of the children, the rattling of the breakfast dishes, the commanding voice of Maria Petrovna, his mother-in-law, and from the drawing-room the chirping of the canary, which sounded to his ears like a policeman’s whistle. He did not feel like getting up--he felt like lying a bit longer, too lazy to dress, therefore he smoked a few cigarettes before getting up strength for the ordeal. He usually rose dissatisfied and out of sorts, because he did not much fancy the rules of life by which one had to hurry with ablutions, toilet, breakfast, and then go to the bank. “Go and see if papa has awakened yet!” he heard his wife’s voice, and a moment afterward a round, little head was thrust through the doorway, and a child’s treble chimed in: “Papa! Are you up?” “I am, I am!” Iván Mikhailovich replied, ill-pleased, and angrily rinsed his mouth, gurgling, sputtering, and groaning. At the breakfast table he sat sulky and preoccupied, as if wholly taken up with some very important thoughts, and did not deign to pay the least attention to any one. His wife, casually glancing up at him, thought: “He must have lost at cards at the club last night, and does not know now where to get the money to pay up.” At ten, Iván Mikhailovich went to the bank, from which he returned at four, tired, hungry, and out of sorts. Sitting down to the table, he tucked his napkin under his chin, and ate with a loud smacking of the lips; after he had filled himself, he invariably grew good-natured, and said: “Well, now we shall take a little nap,” and went into his study, in which were displayed a bearskin, a pair of reindeer antlers, and a rifle from which he had never fired a shot. There he coughed and spat for a long time, and afterward snored so loudly that the children feared to approach too near the door of the study, and when the nurse wished to stop a fight or a quarrel between them, she would say: “There--the bear is asleep in papa’s room--I will let the bear out after you!”